Hank: Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

John: Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank.

Hank: It's a podcast where my brother and I, we answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. And this week's Dear Hank and John is a little bit different.

John: How's it different, John? Well, we are actually sitting across from each other in my office here in Indianapolis because you have been kind enough to fly here just so we can do some IRL podcasting.

Hank: Eye to eye, face to face.

John: Yes.

Hank: Head to head.

John: Yes.

Hank: How do we prove to them that we're actually sitting here together?

John: Mmm, we could make a high five. High five. Could you hear that? It was legit.

Hank: What about this one?

John: Oh, you're right. It's so easy to fake.

Hank: Yeah, I was just clapping that time.

John: I think people would just be able to tell because the vibe is gonna be different. Yeah. Yeah.

Hank: We'll be more frustrated with each other, more angry, and more, I think, despondent. Hank!

John: That reminds me of what a funny podcast this comedy podcast is. Hank, would you like a short poem for today?

Hank: I... doesn't matter.

John: Because you're gonna get one. This is a very short poem to make up for the longest short poem I read a couple weeks ago. This is called You Fit Into Me by Margaret Atwood. Are you familiar with this poem?

Hank: No.

John: Oh, it's a good one. You ready? You fit into me like a hook into an eye. A fishhook.

An open eye.

Hank: That was a short poem!

John: Very short.

Hank: I like Margaret Atwood. That's my kind of poem.

John: Yeah, well Margaret Atwood's your kind of writer for sure. She's great! And I've always liked that poem. Because there's so much you complete me and you fit into me and we compliment each other. poetry out there that she sets your expectations up pretty carefully and you're just picturing this needle and this thread.

And then you're not.

Hank: Yep.

John: All right. How are you, Hank? What's going on? What's new?

Hank: Well, I just flew to Indianapolis.

John: Yeah.

Hank: So boy are my arms tired.

John: Oh, God. Cancel the podcast. 

Hank: Yeah, it's a lovely place. I will say that you are office. It's a place where I will never. let my employees go. Because they will see how poorly I treat them in our not very nice office.

That's very nice here. And your house is lovely, your family is lovely, and your town is lovely. It is Indianapolis.

The airport is amazing.

John: We have an amazing airport.

Hank: And you have good cookies, I've heard, but I haven't been able to try them yet. I'm looking forward to these great cookies. And my parents are here and my wife is here. It's just family.

It's good family time.

John: Yeah.

Hank: And it's enjoyable.

John: No, it's beautiful and we're very happy to have you here. Thanks for coming. We've been here because it's the annual meeting or semi-annual meeting for DFTBA.com, the web store where you can find merch.

Hank: We don't have any Dear Hank and John merch.

John: We don't have Dear Hank and John merch.

Hank: What a disaster for this particular moment where we're talking about...

John: It would be great to have something to advertise. However, you can go and buy Hank and John's stuff. From phone cases to jewelry to t-shirts to posters. Check it out at DFTBA.com.

Today's podcast actually sponsored by DFTBA.com. So, you want to answer? some questions?

Hank: I think that's probably a good idea, since it's what we do.

John: Can I ask the first one? Sure. Dear John and Hank, this question is from Brooke. She writes, I am a freshman starting high school this year.

I'm also starting in a completely new school. What are some ways to make new friends? I feel like this question was designed for me, Hank, because as you know, I have made one friend in the last 12 years.

My friend Chris Waters, my best friend.

Hank: A person who you made friends with completely outside of the environment of school.

John: Yes, but I made the one. I made one friend. That's the first time I've made a friend since school. So I'm pretty proud of myself.

And then I'm also very good friends with his wife, Marina Waters, but I met her through him. In fact, all of my other friends are either people I work with or people I met through Chris. So my first recommendation would be Brooke. to make friends with Chris.

I mean, he's amazing. He will introduce you to tons of people. No, none of your fellow freshmen in high school.

They'll all. be adults, so that would probably be weird. Let's try to find some better advice than that because I don't think that's good. Hank, what's your advice?

It's hard.

Hank: It is hard. And in my experience, it is also. It was never something that I did intentionally until I was an adult. It was always something that just sort of happened to me.

And I think that that's okay. But I definitely found myself hanging out for a long time with people I didn't really dig that much. And then I would find like one person who I'd actually get along with and then latch on to them and spend all my time with them, which is fine.

And that's, you know, your quintessential best friend. And then finally it took me, you know... Until like senior year of high school until I had like a group of friends who I who I felt like I would have been friends with them even if I hadn't just been thrown into a situation with them. that sort of like created the friendship.

John: Right. I mean, there's a lot of like friendships of convenience, not just in high school or college, but also in adulthood. But, you know, my my main recommendation is to try to be Nice. There's a great line in the movie Harvey, in this world Elwood you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. for years I was smart.

I recommend pleasant. It can be very hard to be nice especially when people are mean to you but I believe that if you are If you try to be a good friend, if you try to be a good listener, if you try to ask questions and become genuinely interested in the lives of the people around you, some of them, not all of them unfortunately, but some of them will in turn treat you the way that you are treating them and I believe that good friendships can come out of that. But it is not easy and I think the main thing that I would say is that like it's also you also have to remember that like it's not easy for anybody else either. even the people who maybe seem like they're popular or seem like they're comfortable or confident probably aren't nearly as comfortable and confident as they as they as they. appear to be but it isn't easy and I think that you should. you know it's okay to be scared but but also bear in mind that like it will get easier it will get better like in the same way as you know Your first day doing anything is not as easy as your hundredth day.

Once you're settled in that new school, things will get easier. But I wish you well, and certainly, listeners of Dear Hank and John, if you happen across Brooke at your school, be nice to her. She seems like a very sweet person.

Hank: We have another question. This one is from Chris, who asks, Dear Hank and John, I understand and respect your passion for the planet Mars.

John: I've got to stop you right there, Hank. I am not at all passionate about the planet Mars, Chris.

Hank: This question is for Hank. He said that. He says that this question is for Hank. It's for Hank.

Just for Hank.

John: Yeah, but I just feel like I'm being excluded from the podcast. So I just want to establish right now that I have no passion for Mars. There are very few cold dead rocks. I care less about.

Hank: As our closest neighbor in space, Chris says, it is hard not to be fascinated by Mars unless you are John Green. However, I wonder if it isn't becoming just slightly passé to care so much about the inner planets. With the huge amounts of data streaming from New Horizons, Cassini, and other explorers in the outer solar system, would you consider focusing some of your attention on that great beyond? Capitalized, by the way.

The data will be coming in for years and years, so there will be lots of new things to study, discover, and learn about. What do you think?

John: Oh, that's a great idea, Chris. Anything to get us to stop talking about Mars would be welcome, even if it means having to talk about Jupiter.

Hank: Uh... There are lots of really fascinating things going on past Mars, I agree. There are nice things about Mars. It is a fairly hospitable place in terms of the rest of the solar system.

John: I prefer Earth.

Hank: Yes, Earth is definitely, but you're not gonna like, it's very difficult to send a probe to the surface of Venus where it rains sulfuric acid. Not a. good...

John: Hank, I don't like to disagree with you when it comes to hard science stuff but I read something on the internet about how the greenhouse, the gas stuff, that's not even true.

Hank: We're gonna get back to Chris's question. Where are we? I'm not gonna, okay. John is joking, by the way. 

John: You became visibly anxious when I said that.

Hank: Oh my goodness, we have a guest.

John: Oh, a very special guest. Oh, hello. It's Wheezy. Weezie Waiter is pulling up a chair right now.

You're legally required to sing that when I enter a room. Can we hear him over there?

Hank: Yeah, you have to be on this side. So Craig Benzine, Weezie Waiter, has just joined us. We're talking about which planets are the most fascinating.

Craig: Which planets are the most fascinating? In our solar system?

John: Yes. What's your favorite planet in our solar system?

Hank: Let's just all go around and say. No, you can't pick Earth. Saturn. Saturn?

Yep, Mars.

John: You know, if I can't pick Earth, in a way, there's seven equally dead and meaningless rocks.

Hank: Well, several of them aren't, in fact, rocks.

John: Don't they have rock cores somewhere? No. You're telling me. that there are planets that have no solidity. Just gas?

Hank: I did not say that. I said that they didn't have rock cores.

John: What do they have?

Hank: Liquid or solid hydrogen and helium.

Craig: Is that Venus?

John: Wait, so you're telling me there are planets that are just liquid helium?

Hank: No, I'm saying that Jupiter and Saturn and Neptune are just gassy things, and so we're not sure what's in the middle because they're awful big, but we think that it's probably just really, really tightly compressed things that would be gas if they weren't so tightly compressed.

John: So you're telling me that I couldn't stand on Jupiter, it would be like standing on a cloud?

Hank: Uh, no. Standing on Jupiter would be like falling into a cloud that became so dense that it crushed you.

Craig: That doesn't sound like fun.

Hank: Don't do that.

John: Once again, Earth. The number one place to live in the solar system.

Craig: Are you saying Saturn's like that too?

Hank: Yeah, yeah, all the gas giants.

John: All right. No, okay. So in that case, my favorite non-Earth planet is gonna have to be the moon. It's close.

It's very close to Earth, which is great. And then also, it's relatively hospitable because we had astronauts on it.

Craig: But it's also not a planet.

Hank: This is a thing that we could play semantics and say, you know, by the definition, any definition.

John: Alright, then my favorite non-Earth...

Hank: No, actually, there are people who argue that the Earth-Moon system is actually a binary planet system.

John: Like, two planets. Yeah. The Earth is one and the Moon is the other. Yeah.

Alright. If the moon is a planet, I'm going to pick the moon. If the moon is not a planet, I'm going to stun everyone and pick Mars.

But only because the others are so useless. Like, would the solar system or any aspect of human experience be in any way different if we eliminated all seven of the other planets? Yes.

Hank: Very, very different.

John: Pal, tell me.

Hank: Just the fact that we would have had no planets in the sky would have made it much more difficult to figure out how our place in the universe. Having those other planets be these weird things that were moving around, that was the impetus for the scientific revolution. That's how we figured out how gravity works. That's how Newton determined. many of the things Newton figured out.

John: Pretty sure an apple fell on his head, and that's how he discovered gravity.

Hank: Though I do love your question, though, how would science have proceeded differently if we hadn't have had these objects in the sky behaving so strangely? that would have allowed us to figure out the rules of gravity and motion?

John: That's great. Let's move on to another question. 

Hank: How long are you here for, Craig?

Craig: Well, I'm leaving as soon as you guys are done with me here.

John: Okay, so this question is from...

Hank: Oh right, you're not going to a plane. You can drive home. I can drive, but I do have to be somewhere.

John: This question is from Steven, who asks, Dear John and Hank, and apparently Craig, I've just turned 30. As demonstrated that I listen to your podcast and watch your videos, I'm still clinging to some semblance of youth, but my wife tells me it's all downhill from here. Is she right? First off, Steven, there's lots of adults who watch our videos and listen to the podcast.

Thank you for being one of them. Secondly, I can report as a 37-year-old that in. fact it's not all downhill between 30 and 37 because I've found my 30s, and I'm not just saying this because I've had this like strange good fortune of professional success, I've found my 30s to be an A-plus number one decade. If I had to rank my personal decades completely forget about strip away like all all professional successes or failures just like relationships and personal experiences relationship with the world feeling of comfort and Satisfaction with the experience of being alive.

I'm gonna rank them ready. Okay 30s.

Hank: Mm-hmm.

John: 10 to 20 20 to 30 0 to 10 0 to 10 is last because I didn't know what the heck was going on. I was just like, this is terrifying. That was pretty much, until I was ten years old, I essentially never had an emotion other than fear.

Hank: That's, I don't remember that about you, but I was very, very young. You, sometimes, like, it's interesting sitting here across from you because I realize how much you talk. You can just go on. Greg, rank your decades.

Craig: Okay, I have to actually agree pretty much exactly with John. Exactly. I think my 30s are my favorite because. all of the social anxiety that I felt in my 20s and all of the uncertainty of like where my life was headed is kind of gone. And not just because my career, again, not just because my career is really, I've had good fortune in my 30s.

I have... 

Hank: So being a third person who has experienced success in their 30s, I'm going to try and come up from a different angle and say that I feel like most of my friends are also that way. They feel like they've found more of their place and more of what, like, they feel comfortable with and, like, who they are. And it really, I think, like, it's strange. And I'm interested to see what my 40s are like, because maybe it'll be even better.

And I should ask some 48-year-olds and be like, hey, how's the 40s going? And see, maybe it just keeps getting better from like every, until you get to be the time when you're dying and then it might be a little painful and sad.

Craig: I expect that the, that it'll be more of like the 30s. It'll just, I'll just be older.

Hank: This 30s but. older until, you know, until I'm gone.

Craig: I mean, I will have kids eventually which will change things quite a bit. Yes.

John: There is a drastic, drastic drop-off in quality of life around 90.

Hank: Yeah, that sounds about right.

John: I've never spoken to someone who said, all right, I'm going to rank my decades. Best, my 90s. They've been amazing.

Hank: I just want to say that I find it interesting that I've forgotten his name.

John: Stephen.

Hank: That Stephen has said that he's holding onto some vestige of his youth, which is evidenced by his listening to our podcast. Are we A way for people to hold on to their youths? Are we just for young people, John? I feel quite not young.

I feel like a 35 year old.

Craig: You guys are a bunch of old men.

Hank: You know what I've- By you guys you mean the three of us? Yes, yes.

John: You know what I've just noticed, Hank? What? You can just talk and talk and talk and talk. We got another question.

This one comes from Alex, who writes, Dear John and Hank, what clubs or sports did you participate in high school? and or college? 

Hank: Let's ask. Craig as well. You go first.

Craig: I'm from a very small town so I was able, there wasn't a lot to do other than sports, so I was able to participate in a lot. I participated in basketball, football and track mainly.

John: Were you good at any of these?

Craig: I was pretty good at basketball.

John: Yeah.

Hank: But then by junior year I wasn't tall. Hank Green In college, which was not organized in any way. It was an excuse to... It was a thing you could do while drinking beer.

You can kind of play Ultimate Frisbee and drink beer at the same time.

John: Great sport. Not at a professional level.

Hank: No, no, certainly not. And as far as clubs, I was like in an art club in high school. I was in the AIDS awareness club in high school. In college, I was in like an activism activist club that was sort of just angry about The way that America treats the rest of the world and also the institution of capitalism.

So I was sort of like, that was my main thing in college, which is interesting. I've had an interesting progression from that.

John: Yeah, I wouldn't say. you've completely abandoned that. No. I said at your wedding, and I would stand by this, that of all the communists I know, Hank loves money the most. I also would like to point out that you were in the marching band.

Hank: Oh, yes, I was. I didn't actually march, though, because the first year of marching band I broke my foot. And so I was behind. And so I was in the pit.

I played the pit percussion. And I also was, for a while, the high school mascot, Willie the Wildcat.

John: Which is wonderful. I mean, I can only imagine how good of a Willie the Wildcat you must have been. You're very, uh...

Hank: You know, looking back, I could have been better. I feel, it's one of the things that I regret, that, like, I had this opportunity, and I was wearing, and I, but, like, I was very self-conscious, which is strange, because I was wearing a costume, and no one knew it was me. Yeah. But I was very self-conscious, and I feel like I could have been a better Willy.

What would you have done differently? I think I should have danced more, I. should have, like, played with the... the children in the audience and like and you know just been more energetic and I mostly just walked around and was like eh.

John: You know I'm also surprised that you didn't dance more because I happen to know that in 1998 you were voted best dancer by your fellow students at Winter Park High School.

Hank: But I never did it with a Wildcat costume on.

John: You only did it at prom.

Hank: No, I did it in the marching band. Like, when we were in the stands, I would, like, totally dance. But when I was wearing the Willy the Wildcat costume, I felt self-conscious. It's very strange, and I do not understand it.

John: That is fascinating. I was mostly an Ultimate Frisbee player, and I was, I would say, 9th best out of the 11 starters. And then I also... I was very involved in academic decathlon, this weird quasi-sport where you participate in 10 different academic events, from economics to speech to taking a history test, and each team has to have three A students with GPAs above 3.5, three B students with GPAs between 3.0 and 3.5, and three C students.

And really, of course, the difference between a good academic decathlon team and a great one is it's C students, because everyone has smart A students, and I was a C student for our academic decathlon team. And in fact, when I was very close to getting a 3.0 GPA, a teacher who will remain anonymous, but who also worked with me on the academic decathlon team said, I can't help but notice that you're doing quite well in physics this year. And I said, yeah.

And he said, well, I just want you to know we don't have a spot for you as a B student on the academic decathlon team. So I threw physics. You threw it.

I threw it. I got a D in physics so that I could maintain my C student status as an academic athlete and thereby help my school at the national tournament, which that year was in Newark, New Jersey, where I very briefly, but very intensely over the course of about four hours, while drinking six wine coolers, fell in love with a young woman from Oklahoma, who, as it turned out, had a boyfriend. But that is a different story.

Hank: Fascinating. I had no idea how corrupt these. Yeah.

Craig: The academic decathlon was whatever that was.

Hank: Yeah, and I'm sure that that has had, I mean, never mind. This question is from Calvin who asks, Dear Hank and John, do you think it's possible for society to promote a good thing, such as a healthy diet or active lifestyle, without stigmatizing those who don't fit that description? I think this is interesting particularly from the public health standpoint of cigarette smoking. Because a lot I feel like a lot of the way that we dramatically decrease the amount of cigarette smoking in America was by sort of having a negative image of people who smoked cigarettes. and I definitely like like and I guess I still to some extent have that where I'm like. oh I You know like oh you smoke cigarette.

Oh, I don't know how to feel about that which is of course, you know Well, I think that it's a little different.

John: I grew up smoking cigarettes and I quit in 2002 and I grew up with the Marlboro Man and Joe Cool, the camel, who would smoke cigarettes and magazine ads and magazines I liked. and everything. And I do think that by shifting the image of the smoker from a cool cowboy and or a cartoon camel to people who I think with smoking a difference is it's obviously and always a choice to smoke with obesity.

Craig: Sometimes it's, you know, it's genetic, sometimes it's not controllable, so it's a little bit more of an iffy.

John: It's also not a very good reflector of health, like BMI, the ratio between your body weight and your height, like, is not actually that good a predictor of health outcomes, like what is considered, people who live the longest are actually people who are what is considered to be overweight, at least in many countries. So I don't, I think it's like this whole idea that somehow stigmatizing fatness is going to lead to a healthier country is ridiculous.

Hank: Yes, the other thing is feeling bad about yourself does not tend to lead to less poor Decision Making.

John: Yeah, I mean I quit.

Hank: Bad health choices. Like feeling bad about yourself leads to more bad health choices.

John: Right. When I quit smoking, I quit smoking not because smokers were being stigmatized. I quit smoking because people were. telling me I could do it. Right, right.

Hank: And the other thing is that with smoking it is a thing that is addictive and the goal is to not have people start because once you start it's difficult to stop. Whereas food is something that all people need to be eating.

John: I will say as far as an active lifestyle goes that I do think that we need to, we should promote activity in people who, you know, are able to be physically active because that is at least according to Dr. Aaron Carroll, the host of Healthcare Triage, who is the only person I know who is a healthcare economist. You know, Aaron certainly feels like exercise is the by far the biggest. 

Craig: I watched the vlogbrothers.

Hank: We always pop across the screen and we're always moving from one side to the other.

Craig: A lot of jump cuts going on there. On a giant screen.

Hank: I watch you on a wall projection. Every day. You lift eye weights? Yes, I do.

With fishhooks?

Craig: Like very sticky contact lenses.

John: You know, after my orbital cellulitis, I did have to do eye exercises. You did? Yeah. I couldn't see out of. my left eye for the longest time, and yeah, I did.

It wasn't muscle exercises, but it was focusing exercises where I would be like, well, I guess they can't really see what I'm doing, right? That's the downside of the in-person podcast, Hank, is that I forget that they're not seeing what I'm seeing, which, by the way, what I'm seeing right now is Hank and Craig, Hank wearing a pink shirt, Craig wearing a PBS Digital Studios shirt, always repping the brand. And I just realized now that Hank and I are wearing nearly identical grey jeans.

Correct. Okay, I think we've got time for one last question before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. This question is from Joanna, who asks, Dear John and Hank, If you could have been a child prodigy at any one thing, what would it have been?

Hank: Oh, could I keep that skill throughout life?

John: I assume so. That's how child prodigy usually works. Right. You don't forget how to play the piano?

Hank: Yeah, I feel like it would probably be some kind of musical instrument.

John: Which one? Uh, accordion?

Hank: Are there child prodigies in the accordion? Maybe.

John: not yet.

Hank: Yet!

John: Was Weird Al Yankovic an accordion prodigy?

Hank: You know, I doubt that Weird Al Yankovic could ever, like, he's a good accordion player. But I don't know how good he is. Maybe he's very, very good.

Craig: He's just one of the only famous ones.

Hank: Right. Is it?

John: And this is a genuine question for the members of the Dear Hank and John community who are well connected to the world of professional accordionists. Is accordion something where you can achieve an acute level of excellence or is it more about style?

Hank: I think it's something you could achieve an acute level of excellence at. I mean, you look at the accordion, it looks very complicated. It's got like 80,000 buttons on one side. I think that's an exaggeration.

It's got a piano on the other side. I think you can have one with up to 92 or 108 buttons.

John: Okay.

Hank: And that's a lot of buttons. And if you want to be able to use all those buttons, I can't imagine what's going on in your brain to even know where all those buttons are and what they do. Sure. So yeah, I think that...

I think. you can continue becoming a better accordionist every single day for the rest of your life if you wanted to.

John: Craig?

Craig: Do I think that you can become a good accordionist?

John: No, what would your child prodigy skill be? I've been thinking about it.

Craig: I guess either storytelling, like writing. writing, I think.

John: There aren't a ton of writing prodigies. There are some, like Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 19. You know, John Keats was a very good poet by the time he was 17 or 18. But yeah, I mean, it's not something that people tend to be particularly precocious at when they're kids.

Craig: Yeah, I think I was, I liked it. I think English classes were my favorite, especially when the teacher had us write short stories. And I think I was pretty good at making the other students laugh. 

John: I recently reread one of my stories from college thinking that I could use it to write. And I reread it and I was like, sadly, there is not even a salvageable dependent clause in this entire 60 pages. So I certainly was no writing prodigy. I guess like if I could be prodigious at anything. as a child it would have been math because I find math to be such an interesting language. but it's also a language that I feel like I speak or can use only little bits of, you know, like I speak math. at a five year old level.

But I'm fascinated by the beauty of it. And I think it would help me to appreciate Mars better. And this sort of, you know, the vast, vast, vast majority of the universe, which is outside of direct human experience.

I feel like, you know, being able to speak math helps you to interact with with that universe as well as the human universe a lot better. And I regret like not having a better sort of facility with mathematics even in adulthood. but you know it is something that I like spent a lot of time trying to learn about as an adult. but I wish that I just like picked it up when I was eight. 

Hank: I would have said math but I was a prodigy at math. Oh right you didn't. yeah you already had that one.

John: Hank you were kind of a math prodigy. No at all not. at all. I remember you knew like you could do your multiplication tables in like third grade.

Hank: Yeah sure that kind of math. But that's not the kind of math I want to be prodigious at.

John: No, you want to do the like calculus and geometry.

Hank: The interesting stuff.

John: Yeah, the stuff like my friend Daniel Biss does where he proved that a triangle is really just a kind of circle. That stuff is amazing. It's mind-blowing. Or like understanding why, you know, trees have symmetrical leaves and stuff.

I don't know. There's so much beauty out there that you don't get to appreciate. if you aren't aware of Hank, speaking of beauty that often goes unappreciated, what is the news from Mars this week?

Hank: Do we want to say goodbye to Craig first?

Craig: I probably have to go, but I really appreciate you guys having me on this podcast.

Hank: Yeah, so thank you to Craig Wheezy Waiter for joining us, youtube.com slash wheezywaiter, also the host of the good stuff, youtube.com slash the good stuff, also the host of... Crash Course regular government and politics. on YouTube.com slash Crash Course.

John: Regular government mostly being American government.

Hank: American government. American, yes. Yeah, normal. Like American cheese is the regular kind of cheese.

Yeah, the standard global cheese.

John: Our global listeners have no idea what American cheese is, but let me assure you, friends, You also don't want to find out.

Craig: No, no.

John: It's only going to disappoint you.

Hank: Oh, Craig, thank you very much for joining us.

Craig: Thank you for having me.

Hank: Enjoy. Go home to your lady.

John: Give me a hug. I will. Oh, we're hugging. OK, we're going to hug it out.

Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks.

Say hi to John for me. Happy podcasting. Thank you.

All right. Hank, yes. What is the news from Mars this week?

Hank: This week in Mars News. John, have you ever wanted To have your name on the surface of Mars? Yes. Because you can have that.

Really? You can do that right now. NASA is sending a mission to Mars soon and included on that mission will be a very small silicon chip that they will be etching people's names into.

And I just signed up and had them etch my name into this chip that they're going to send to Mars.

John: How much does it? cost?

Hank: It's free.

John: What?

Hank: It's free.

John: Where can you go to sign up?

Hank: You have to go to mars.nasa.gov.

John: Go to mars.nasa.gov and you can have your name etched onto a silicon chip that will be on Mars. Will it stay on Mars?

Hank: Yeah.

John: Forever?

Hank: Yeah.

John: Nope. Incorrect. Because in forever, the universe will just die. Okay.

Hank: For at least a billion years.

John: Yeah. Well, I mean, unless Mars gets hit by a gigantic comet and that silicon chip comes flying and hits Earth and kills somebody.

Hank: Oh, yeah. Then it would be on Earth. In a person's head. Your name! 

John: I want to sign up for that.

Hank: Yeah, you can do that.

John: It's totally free.

Hank: Yeah, it's absolutely free.

John: You're telling me that NASA is just giving away naming rights to Mars?

Hank: No.

John: Because AFC Wimbledon charges a lot for them. That's great. Congratulations. In AFC Wimbledon news, AFC Wimbledon just Had an evening of Paper Towns where the manager and several of the players and lots and lots of AFC Wimbledon fans decked out in their AFC Wimbledon gear and went to a theater in South London and all watched the Paper Towns movie together and then made. me the sweetest most awesome video about the experience, which you can find on my Twitter, twitter.com. slash John Green.

And it was really wonderful. Also, Hank, Callum Kennedy, you know Callum Kennedy, AFC Wimbledon left back hero. of the AFC Wimbledon. Wimbly Wombly is the fictional version of AFC Wimbledon I play FIFA with.

Callum Kennedy scored a goal against Cambridge United. Only three points from three games so far. worrisomely, but Callum Kennedy scored a goal against Cambridge and he did a celebration that has gone viral in which he attempted to recreate the velociraptor run. from the movie Jurassic World. And if you have not had a chance to see that, you should because it is a thing of true beauty.

Hank: That sounds enjoyable to me. John, I have a question. There's one goal. from Callum Kennedy in this game. I'm assuming that it was not the only goal scored in that game.

John: Indeed, it was not. Sadly, there were two goals scored by Cambridge. Hence the zero points that came out of that game. So three league games so far for AFC Wimbledon.

One win, two losses. That means three points out of three games. Not. where we'd like to be.

But the season is young. Hope is the thing with feathers. What did we learn today, Hank?

Hank: We learned that John, when he's sitting across from you, it really does hit home how much he talks.

John: Today's podcast is brought to you by Hank. Hank, making fun of me for talking too much, even though I bet if we did the math, he talks more on Dear Hank and John than I do.

Hank: Today's podcast is brought to you by the person who is actually going to do the math. Person who's actually going to do the math? You are an amazing fan of this podcast and I can't wait. put it on Twitter.

John: Today's podcast is brought to you by your thirties. Your thirties! Underrated!

Hank: Today's podcast is brought to you by WheezyWaiter.

John: We also learned that both Hank and I played Ultimate Frisbee as children.

Hank: Yeah, we learned that John intentionally threw his physics game so that he could participate in another game.

John: I wouldn't really call the study of physics in high school a game.

Hank: You know, your game, though.

John: You mean my grade?

Hank: Yeah, like your game. Like, this is my, like, it's all, it's all, like, it's a phrase.

John: Like my physics game is strong? Yeah. Oh, okay. I didn't know that we were speaking so colloquially.

Um, and of course, we also learned that Hank, if he just had the chance, would have been a brilliant young accordionist.

Hank: No, I probably wouldn't have been, but that's what I want. And then I could then, man, wouldn't it be amazing for the Perfect Strangers if I was like a rockin' accordionist?

John: For those of you who don't know, Hank, in addition to being a vlogbrother, the host of Crash Course, the co-creator of Vidcon and DFTBA Records, is a rockstar, and his band is called Hank Green and the Perfect Strangers.

Hank: And they unfortunately are not headed by a lead singer who also plays the accordion.

John: Tragically, Hank is unable to play the accordion, which is the reason that Hank Green and the Perfect Strangers will always be a bit of a niche band. 

Hank: It's really holding us back.

John: If only you could play the accordion, you guys would really break out onto the Billboard charts.

Hank: I think so. You can participate in Dear Hank and John by sending us. questions to hankandjohn at gmail.com. This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. The theme music is by Gunnarolla, and as they say in our hometown, Don't forget to be awesome.